


Why Can't I Touch It?

by BoxWineConfessions



Series: Heart Break Beat [3]
Category: Yuri!!! on Ice (Anime)
Genre: Childhood Friends to Lovers, Crying During Sex, Hand Jobs, High School AU?, Kind of a songfic, M/M, Mutual Pining, Sorry Not Sorry, frustrated masturbating, gender fluid Yuri, heart break beat
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-05-14
Updated: 2017-05-14
Packaged: 2018-10-31 17:46:30
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Underage
Chapters: 1
Words: 7,052
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/10904304
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/BoxWineConfessions/pseuds/BoxWineConfessions
Summary: Otabek writhes against the sheets to get his sweats pulled down, and Yuri can hear the grunt of frustration in his voice. Yuri can feel the movements of his wrist. The mattress rolls and creaks with every single pump of his wrist.  Yuri can’t help himself. He pulls his own half hard cock from his pajama bottoms and mimics the slow motions of his fist.Yuri comes first. Then Otabek. Otabek moves for a tissue immediately. Yuri isn’t sure what to do. They’re not supposed to do this when the other person is still awake.





	Why Can't I Touch It?

**Author's Note:**

  * For [Phayte](https://archiveofourown.org/users/Phayte/gifts), [DoodleLeeDoo](https://archiveofourown.org/users/DoodleLeeDoo/gifts), [voslen](https://archiveofourown.org/users/voslen/gifts), [blackmountainbones](https://archiveofourown.org/users/blackmountainbones/gifts).



> For best effect, put on "Why Can't I Touch It" by the Buzzcocks on repeat until you finish reading.

_Well it seems so real I can see it_

Otebek isn’t his boyfriend, but he certainly seems like one sometimes. Otabek got his license in the fall. On the off chance they stayed at their respective homes, Otabek will pick him up. More often than not, he just shuffles out of the Altin’s house alongside the rest of the children. Some mornings, but not every morning, he manages to sit in the front seat next to Otabek. Never alone of course. Ami or Farida are usually jammed into the passenger’s seat, but he’ll take the middle. Even if it means that he has to straddle the gearshift and his legs end up pressed too close to Otabek’s.

After they stop at the elementary school, then the middle school, Otabek waits for the girls to go inside. Then they sit on the long bench seat, Otabek on one end, Yuri on the other and a wide void like space in between them now that there’s nobody left. They smoke cigarettes when they have them. When they don’t, Yuri chews gum and mashes the buttons on the tape player. Otabek finishes his readings for his honors history class with the book balanced over the steering wheel whether they have cigarettes or not. 

Yuri looks to the other parked cars and sees girls putting on their makeup while looking in visor mirrors. He sees the sitting on the trunks of cars with their legs splayed wide and their boyfriends in between pressing sloppy kisses wherever they can find space. Yuri feels like that sometimes, even though he knows that it’s _not_ like that.

_And it seems so real I can feel it_

Otabek isn’t his boyfriend. However, he certainly sees Otabek in moments that, if life were a movie, would imply sexiness and intimacy. If it were a movie, the lights would dim, the music would get soft, and Otabek would catch his glance at just the right moment.

In real life, it’s not quite like that.

Otabek never dresses right away after he gets out of the shower. He comes into his room with a towel around his waist and digs through the dresser until he finds something to wear. If they’re at Yuri’s house, the action is repeated but Otabek rifles through his duffel bag. Otabek never announces it, and so often, Yuri has to turn his head lightening quick and look away before he sees anything.

_And it seems so real I can taste it_

Otabek likes to use the weights down in the basement. Yuri’s never used them, grandpa has never used them, and mom sure as hell has never used them, and so Yuri’s not quite sure why they have them. Otabek will lift weights for what feels like hours in little more than a tank top and stupid looking track shorts while Yuri runs a few dozen pool balls at the table.

_And it seems so real I can hear it_

On Friday nights, Yuri watches as Otabek slicks his hair back like a punk in the movies. First he extracts lots of waxy goop from a little tin can, then he rubs it on his hair, and then he combs it back. He does all of this while Yuri sits on his bed and paints his nails with whatever shade of Wet-n-Wild he managed to walk out with at the drugstore. Otabek’s started shaving recently too. He does that with the bathroom door wide open. He lathers his face up with so much Barbasol, and Alibek always bitches about it, “You don’t need that much for three hairs Beka.”

Yuri always feels like he’s intruded on something very secretive. You’re not supposed to see someone like that. It’s private.

_So why can't I touch it?_

Otabek isn’t his boyfriend, but it certainly feels that way sometimes. Otabek’s been sleeping in his bed since they were little. It just made sense. No need to get any extra blankets or sheets out, not that they had them to spare. Yuri has a full size mattress inherited from when his mom got the water bed. When he’s at Otabek it’s often the same. Sure Mrs. Altin always gets him blankets and pillows and a sleeping bag, but the nest on the floor is often abandoned for Otabek’s bed.  The floor is too hard and hurts his back.

On rare occasions, Yuri will wake up before Otabek. In those moments, the glare from the morning sun dapples his face. He always looks so peaceful. Which is the opposite of how Otabek is during waking hours. His hair is usually mussed too, going every direction against the pillow, and that is also the opposite of how Otabek looks when he’s awake. Never a follicle out of order.

_So why can't I touch it?_

Yuri knows exactly what Otabek smells like. On school days it’s hair gel and earthy shampoo and cologne. On weekends it’s all of that plus cigarette smoke. Sometimes he smells like motor oil. Sometimes he smells like pine from raking up the endless orange rust colored needles from out in his parents back yard.

Otabek isn’t his boyfriend, but they have toothbrushes at each other’s places. Yuri knows from television that that is a big deal. Yuri’s toothbrush at his house is pink. Yuri’s toothbrush at Otabek’s house is green.

Otabek’s towel at his house is mint green with bleach stains. Otabek’s towel at his own house is dark blue. Every towel in the house is dark blue, and Yuri has to ask Otabek which one is supposed to be his. Somehow, Otabek always knows.

_Then it looks so real I can see it_

 

Otabek isn’t his boyfriend. He’s pretty sure he’s not gay. If anyone would know, it would be Yuri.  They’re best friends right? Otabek fixes cars with his dad, lifts weights in his basement, once in a blue moon will join a pickup game of football down with some of the other guys they go to high school with in the practice field.

Otabek doesn’t have a poster of a girl across a car or anything like that to prove that he’s straight. He doesn’t need to. Not when he fixes shit, and carries heavy boxes around for grandpa.

Otabek definitely isn’t gay because he doesn’t do ballet. He doesn’t paint his nails. He doesn’t run around in his mom and grandma’s lacy tops. He doesn’t get cat called when he walks to the corner store for a pop and a honey bun.

_And it feels so real I can feel it_

It’s pretty strange that a straight guy would keep someone like Yuri around. At this point there’s no denying that there’s a shred of truth to what people yell at him from cars, what they hiss at him in the locker room in gym: fag, and fairy, and queer. It’s why he’s skipped gym every day this semester.

Otabek knows because Otabek always knows.

The fact that Otabek walked in on him jerking it to some grainy and distorted gay shit on Skinemax didn’t help.

After that, Yuri was convinced that Otabek just kept him around because they’d been best friends for forever. It’s easy for Otabek to overlook that nasty little pat of him, because he knew so much more about him. That’s what Yuri told himself anyways.

Then, one day they were down at the corner store. Things got fucking weird.

_And it tastes so real I can taste it_

 Otabek unzips his jacket and produces several magazines with glossy covers. He hands them to Yuri with shaky hands. Yuri had waited the whole time up the block wedged up into the pay phone booth.

“Are these right?” Yuri’s been banned from the store for lifting before. Now for whatever reason, Otabek offered to take up the job of boosting him mags so he doesn’t get fucking blue balls thinking about Otabek and his stupid leather jacket all the time.

“Well are there tits?” 

Otabek shakes his head from side to side in a stern, “no.”

“Then you did good Altin.” The cable had been cut off again, which meant Yuri had nothing. Not even distorted Skinemax. He was fucking dying without something to stimulate his imagination. You can only jerk off to Bruce Lee and Jean Claude Van Damne on VHS so many times. You can only steal mom’s crumpled Jude Deveraux novels so many times before they get predictable. His mind wandered into real life, and he only knew one tolerable man in real life.

Yuri peels the cover back. “Oh, wow Beka,” Yuri feels his mouth go dry. Playgirl usually wasn’t thing but the model this month had an undercut.

“What,” and Otabek tilts the magazine downward so that he can see the double page spread. “Oh. You like that?”

“Maybe.”

The air  between them is Thanksgiving tension thick. Thanksgiving wrapped in Christmas wrapped in, “oh fuck, mom’s back”, kind of tension.

“Not my type,” Otabek concludes finally. “I don’t like too many muscles.”

Yuri feels heart drop and his mouth go dry. What the fuck was that supposed to mean?  Otabek liked skinny girls?

_And it feels so real I can taste it_

“We need a new spot,” Otabek complains. Lots of kids in Otabek’s class got their licenses recently. Zesto Burger on Riverside Drive was _their_ fucking spot ever since they had their shitty paper routes when they were kids. Yuri can remember sneaking down here on their bikes after they got paid. They got ice cream cones, and French fries, and spent the rest at the Family Dollar across the street on shit that they didn’t need. They came home with B movies on VHS, and big chewy sweet tarts. Of course there were the occasional things that they did need like socks, and underwear, and shitty SUN brand detergent that actually stained your clothes blue if you weren’t careful.

As if on cue a nasally male voice interjects, “On a date with your freshman girlfriend?” Yuri doesn’t know the asshole who said it, but he can only assume that he’s in Otabek’s year. “She’s like a one. Kinda manly.”

Yuri crams a fistful of fried mushrooms into his mouth and throws up double middle fingers.

“Back off Johnson,” Otabek responds in a tone that was too calm. He grabs for his keys and turned to Yuri, “We’re leaving.” Yuri crams all of his shit back into his purse, grabs the grease stained paper bag, and hops off the trunk of the Impala.

Yuri is on him before Otabek could even register what was happening Yuri’ goes after him in a fury of fists, and nails, and he landed several blows before Johnson tried to deck him. Only grazes his jaw, cause he doesn’t know how to throw a punch. Yuri got him down onto the ground and made him eat pavement.

Then as quickly as it all began, almost as if it were calculated, he feels strong arms loop underneath his armpits. Otabek pulls him off. Yuri’s still kicking fitfully at the air when Otabek whispers into his ear, “that’s enough Yuri.”

_And it tastes so real I can hear it_

Otabek turns the engine on. The silence between them is thick and heavy. Heavier than the feeling in his gut after he smashes a whole mess of food from Zesto. The sound of the engine, the blinker, the static filled sound of the alternative rock station, are quiet in comparison to the sound of his own heart thumping in his chest.

“Someday I’m gonna be bigger than you, and you won’t be able to fucking manhandle me like that.” Yuri says finally. I know you don’t like it when I fuck people up in public,” Yuri shakes a Camel red from the pack. They’d felt bad about grabbing them from where they sat next to Alibek’s keys, but he was so forgetful. It probably wouldn’t matter anyway.  “He needed to be taught a lesson. Or else he won’t stop.” Yuri knows this well. “I know you don’t like it when people say stuff like that about you because you know obviously you’re not into dudes and-”

“Yuri,” Otabek’s voice is firm, and laced with something that was almost like anger. Yuri wasn’t  really sure. Otabek rarely speaks in anger. “Stop talking.”

Yuri would be shitty that Otabek blatantly told him to shut up. He had just defended him after all.  It is  easier to jam more fries into his mouth.

_And it sounds so real I can see it_

There’s no way in hell that Yuri’s getting a boyfriend any time soon. The only gay person he knows is Katsuki down at the dance studio, and that fat ass had to import one from the East Coast. Yuri doesn’t really like how this new guy Victor, is way too friendly with Yuri. He always fucking acts like they’ve known each other for forever. He doesn’t like the way that he drapes his long spider like arms over Katsuki. He doesn’t like the sharp smacking sound when his back is turned of lips against lips.

He doesn’t like it how Yuuri never takes his come ons seriously. Says he’s too young. Whatever. It’s not like he wants to fool around with him. Never his first choice. It’s just that Yuuri’s the only other gay person he’s ever known up until he met Victor. What is he supposed to do? Masturbate furiously while everyone else in school with him have shitty little boyfriends and girlfriends?

_So why can't I touch it?_

There’s no way in hell that Yuri’s getting a boyfriend any time soon, but it doesn’t stop him from thinking about what he’d like. He wants someone who works hard, and is no nonsense like grandpa. He wants someone who is clever like Yuuri. He wants someone who is smart, and driven, and handsome, like Otabek. He wants someone who takes care of those closest to him, like Otabek. He wants someone who doesn’t care that he wears lacy tops that smell like mothballs, and won't mind if he beats their ass relentlessly at pool, or poker, or twenty one, like Otabek.  He wants someone who doesn’t talk too fucking much, like Otabek.

There’s no way in hell that Yuri’s getting a boyfriend any time soon. He can only hope that Otabek feels the same way about getting a girlfriend. He’d feel so fucking lost if Otabek started spending his time with some broad. Yuri at least hopes that when it happens that she’s cool. He hopes that she likes burgers from Zesto, and shooting pool, and drinking down at the park after dark.

_So why can't I touch it?_

Yuri used to feel lonely all the time. On the bus, one of the older boys pulled his hair. This happened day after day after day, until the quiet boy who never said anything at all grabbed his bully’s wrist and told him in a voice that made Yuri quake with fear, “Stop.”

It happened slowly. Otabek sat in the seat across the aisle from him on the bus. Then, he started sitting next to him on the bus. Their legs bumping when the bus hit a pothole. Then, he waited for him at his locker after school. He sat next to Yuri on the swings at recess until finally one day he said, “Are you going to be my friend or not?” and then Yuri was never alone.

Yuri’s started to feel lonely again. He and Otabek still spend almost all their time together, but the drift is clear. Otabek sleeps on the blankets and the sleeping bags that his mother brings out. At Yuri’s house, he clings to the edge of the bed, and Yuri knows that it cannot be comfortable. Yuri knows what it’s about. It’s something dark and it’s something ugly, and it’s something he’d hoped that Otabek would never realize.

When they drive to school in the morning, Farida always scoots over to the middle. She doesn’t let Yuri sit in the middle any more, no matter how much he growls through his teeth and curses at her.

_Now it is so real I can see it_

Yuri and Otabek have spent almost every night together since Yuri was in fifth grade. Otabek was in seventh grade, mama got married, and Yuri ran away from home. Things have changed since then. Mama’s not married anymore. Yuri and Otabek spend more nights at Yuri’s house now days. There are fewer people there to tell them what to do, no one there to argue about to watch on television. The downside of course is that there is less food, and no cable.

Spending every night together makes it hard to jerk it. Yuri usually takes care of things in the shower. Once before he washes off, and once after. He stays in until the water runs cold. If that isn’t enough, he waits til Otabek goes to bed and sneaks down to the basement. If they’re at Otabek’s house and it happens, he locks himself into the downstairs bathroom.

Yuri really shouldn’t. He really, really shouldn’t. But he’s aching hard, and Yuri’s on the bitch side of the bed tonight, the one that’s pressed up against the wall. Otabek’s on the other side. It’s cold, and they don’t have enough blankets for Otabek to sleep on the floor. Hours ago, Yuri was thankful, almost giddy that Otabek would sleep next to him. Now, he’s so nervous that he’d trip over Otabek and land against him making Otabek aware of his current situation.

Yuri slips his hands down his pants. He’s the fucking master of getting up and getting off quickly. Yuri tries so hard, as he moves his hand up and down his cock to not think about the soft rise and all of Otabek’s breath. He tries not to think about the warmth radiating from Otabek’s side of the bed. He tries not to think of the way that Otabek’s mouth looks when he’s sleeping: parted slightly, full and kissable.  Yuri comes in seconds. His eyes fly open and he has to stifle a gasp. For a moment the world stops. He stares at the shadow monsters on the ceiling. He wonders what the fuck he’s supposed to do with his damp pants?

_And it is so real I can feel it_

Yuri is pulled from a dead sleep, which is strange because he’s trained himself to sleep through anything: shouting, the TV, hushed tones that weren’t so hushed and said, “I’m just worried he’s a fag.” Maybe it was the sound of the furnace turning on that pulled him awake. The vents above roar to life, and Yuri can feel his eyes dragging closed once more. Then, somehow, over the roar of the furnace he can hear something else.

Otabek’s breathing isn’t even like when he sleeps.  It’s rapid and uneven. He’s sleeping in the blankets on the floor tonight despite the fact that it’s cold. There’s no furnace in the world that can take the draft and the chill out of the Altin’s cold old house.

Yuri listens in terrified silence for a few moments to nothing but the sound of Otabek’s breathing and the furnace. Then, as suddenly as it roared to life, the furnace kicks off. Otabek’s breathing doesn’t even out. Instead, in the added quiet Yuri can hear the unmistakable rustling sound of skin against skin.

Otabek comes with as small, barely there whisper of a whimper. Yuri would think that it was the hottest thing he ever heard, if he wasn’t so terrified of being found out. Yuri grits his teeth, buries himself in the blankets and tries to ignore his raging hard on.

_And it is so real I can hear it_

Yuri didn’t do or say anything the first night he heard Otabek jerking off. He’s done the same damn thing countless times by now. Otabek is knocked out, maybe even making those soft little snoring noises, and he pulls himself through the hole in his boxers, or maybe just lifts up the nightgown he’s wearing and jerks off.

Except it happens several more times in rapid succession.

Friday night, they’d been at a stoplight: Town Street and Franklin. A pair of assholes in a big rusted out truck pulled up to the light next to them and revved the engine. Otabek asked him, “You wanna?”

And Yuri said, “This boat can do it?”

Otabek looked over at the truck. It had comically oversized wheels, a rusted out frame, and somehow managed to spew more black smoke than the Impala. “Worth a shot.”

The light turned green, and in rapid succession so did the rest o the lights down the street. Yuri and Otabek beat the assholes in the truck, but not by much.

Later that night, after they’d drank beers Yuri clipped from grandpa’s stash in the basement, and filled up on burgers from the drive in, and there was nothing to do but sleep, Otabek woke Yuri up once again with the soft rustling sound teasing his own cock. Yuri fucking got it though. Winning the race made his heart pound with adrenaline. It was a good way to work it off.

_And it is so real I can be it_

It keeps happening, and he’s just as fucking guilty. It happens after long nights at Nishi’s when his body aches and his eyes burn from being up for too long. He’s not getting enough sleep, but not feeling tired enough to sleep. He wants to get rid of some of the tension somewhere, and so there’s nothing he can do other than touch himself.

Or at six in the morning on weekends, when Otabek can never sleep in. He’ll turn the TV on, mute it really quickly, and then the bed will dip, the blankets will rustle and Otabek will rub one out while he desperately tries to sleep in.

_So why can't I touch it?_

Yuri isn’t a patient person. It doesn’t take long for him to grow tired of simply listening to Otabek touch himself and pretend to be asleep. Yuri isn’t a stupid person either. He knows he can’t just reach over and grab Otabek’s cock. Otabek isn’t into him like that. They’re just two people who can’t keep away from each other long enough to take care of normal shit like jerking off.

Otabek shows up at the back door with a brown paper grocery bag and that smug, too pleased expression that Yuri always hated to love. “Got something for you Plisetsky.”

It turns out that _something_ was a few of Alina’s hand me downs. Hand me downs were rare as fuck in the Altin household. The girls just passed down clothes. Sometimes he got stuff that Otabek had outgrown, but that was usually stuff that had been sitting in Alibek’s closet for at least a decade cause he’d gotten too fat for it.

“No fucking way.” 

“Alina said these were kind of…projects?”

Yuri extracts a sun dress from the bag. The strap is broken. Yuri extracts a gingham patterned dress from the bag, and the top is stained. He can probably salvage the bottom and make a skirt. However, there was something nice in the bottom. Something that he wonders if Alina hid from the other girls. She always kind of liked him for whatever reason. It’s a denim dress. A little faded, but no visible tears or stains.

“It’s nice,” Otabek comments.

Yuri throws it on. Otabek takes them to the mall. Yuri walks out of Claire’s with a couple stupid little bracelets that don’t set of the sensor.

After that,  they drive down to the park. Otabek pushes him on the swings for awhile, before growing tired of it. The rickety old swing set bows underneath his weight, and creaks when he rocked back and forth upon the swing. Otabek somehow manages to push while smoking a cigarette, which Yuri admired. He would’ve never been able to that without coughing a lung up.

Yuri jumps out of the swings, over and over again, loving the feeling of wind against his bare legs. It’s really too cold to not be wearing pants or tights or anything, but the bite of the cold is addictive against his skin. He ignores every single plea of from Otabek, “Yuri, watch your dress.”

“That only counts for girls,” he explains.

Yuri throws on his nightgown later that night. It’s his favorite: pale blue with little flowers on it. He took a bottle of purple blue nail polish from one of the shops at the mall. While Otabek watches the news with moderate interest, he paints his fingers.

Then, during the sports report, Otabek offers, “I can do your toes.” 

Which is fucking great because Yuri always fucked up his toenails so fucking bad. Otabek takes his right foot into his lap, and the bottle of nail polish into the other.

“That tickles.”

“Sorry,” but it’s clear that Otabek wasn’t sincere. His hand brushes against the sole of his foot and the muscle of his calves several more times. Otabek is awful like that. Always offering favors, and making Yuri pay for them several times over.

“It looks a lot nicer when you do it.”

“Yeah.” Otabek agrees.

Otabek isn’t his boyfriend, but Yuri’s decided that when he gets one, he wants him to be the type of strong manly dude that isn’t afraid to paint his boyfriend’s toenails. There’s something about that that is just really nice.

_So why can't I touch it?_

It began twenty, maybe thirty minutes after they laid down. Otabek writhes against the sheets to get his sweats pulled down, and Yuri can hear the grunt of frustration in his voice. Yuri can feel the movements of his wrist. The mattress rolls and creaks with every single pump of his wrist.

Yuri can’t help himself. He pulls his own half hard cock from his pajama bottoms and mimics the slow motions of his fist. He dare not make a sound. He works his hand the way he always does when Otabek is in the same room with him. Slowly, as to not make too much noise or cause too much movement. Otabek doesn’t seem to care anymore. His motions are fast and rough, and small little noises spill from the corner of his mouth.

Yuri comes first. Then Otabek. Otabek moves for a tissue immediately. Yuri isn’t sure what to do. They’re not supposed to do this when the other person is still awake.

 

_So why can't I touch it?_

It’s like they don’t even care anymore. He don’t even wait for plausible deniability anymore.

When Yuri wakes up, the blinking green numbers on his alarm clock say that it’s 6:00 AM. Soon they’ll have to wake up for school. The house is impossibly old, and so he can hear the shake and the squeak of the shower pipes, meaning someone has beat him to waking up and getting into the shower.

Yuri flops onto his back and considers for a moment what to do about the ache between his legs. Otabek is a very sound sleeper.

Yuri untucks himself from his sweat pants and gives himself a few quick strokes.

Otabek gasps next to him. Yuri freezes for a moment.

Then next to him, he feels movement. He can only assume its Otabek adjusting himself, touching himself. Just like the other night, but there’s so much movement and needy little gasps between them, there’s no going back.

Fuck it. If he loses his best friend over this it’s gonna hurt like a bitch. However, the electric itch of his hard cock in his hand negates all of that. Yuri resumes what he’d been doing before, rapid flicks of the wrist that are designed to get him to come as quickly as possible. There are a few awkward moments between when he comes and when Otabek comes. He simply stares up at the ceiling and watches the cobwebs in the corners of the ceiling move. He listens to the erupting chaos outside as Otabek’s sisters wake up and begin getting ready for school.

Then, when Otabek finally comes, He leans forward. Yuri can hear the twin swiping sounds of tissues being extracted from the box Otabek keeps by the bed. He places one awkwardly on Yuri’s blanket clad chest. Their eyes do not meet.

Then, they get dressed and get ready for school like nothing happened at all. “Go to biology class today,” Otabek tells him while they dress with their backs turned to each other on opposite sides of the room. “I couldn’t sleep last night, so I did your homework.”

_So why can't I touch it?_

Yuri feels lonely. He’d been scheduled to work the earlier shift at Nishi’s but the weather was bad, and it seemed like the whole town was empty. Sunday afternoons were really where the money was at anyway. Yuuko tells told him to go home at one thirty, and sneaks him an extra twenty since Otabek had dropped him off early. He took the morning to scrape all the gum off of the undersides of the tables, refill the sauces, and rearrange the produce in the back room. All the little things that they were supposed to do every day, but sometimes forgot.

Otabek was working too. Until at least three or four. He’d gotten a job detailing cars for fuckers that weren’t rich, just too attached to their shitty 1992 fox body Mustangs. Yuri spends the twenty on frozen pizza, ice cream, a pack of cigarettes, and bus fare since Otabek was working.

Yuri comes home to an empty house. Mom had been gone now for four weeks. Not that he was counting or anything. She had the fucking gall to call collect the other night and say that she’d met someone, gotten married, and met his fucking kids out in California. When he got started at his new job, Yuri could come live with them. Yuri was so fucking angry that he ripped the phone out of the wall. Otabek had to go home, dig through his basement, and find the Altin’s old rotary phone so Grandpa would have _something_ to use.

Yuri’s shower is so hot that his skin turned bright pink and the bathroom filled with fog. Grandpa would’ve yelled at him if he were home for running down the hot water. He wants to heat up the pizza, but he also knows to save it for when Otabek gets home. He makes some plain oatmeal from the can he’d gotten at the food pantry. He tries to cut it with peanut butter and plain sugar and tell himself it’s just as good as the little packets that Otabek’s mom gets.

Yuri and Otabek have all but moved into his mom’s room. There’s a VHS player in here so they don’t have to wait for grandpa to tire of the TV in the living room or use Yuri’s portable TV, which only gets PBS. Otabek doesn’t seem to mind PBS, but he sure as fuck does.

The bed is bigger, and there is less risk of touching one another. Not that it matters when they fucking jerk off in the same bed every night and every single morning.  Otabek hands him tissues, and Yuri puts a bottle of lotion where they both can reach.

Yuri sinks into the waterbed, and immediately he regrets eating so much oatmeal. The rock in his stomach rocks and rolls with the waves of the waterbed. That’s the only downside to staying up here. The mattress fucking sucks. They have to swat the cats away all the time. Not to mention every morning, when they jerk off it makes Yuri seasick.

Yuri pops in a tape. It’s Top Gun, or at least it’s whatever is in the Top Gun case. Yuri falls out before the previews are over.

Yuri is woken up by the feeling of the mattress doing tsunami like waves. Otabek’s laid in bed next to him. Yuri can smell the smell of pizza from the kitchen. “Hey,” Yuri peeks out from over the top of his blanket. It’s the pink crocheted afghan that grandma used to always wear over her lap when she sat in her easy chair.

“Yo,” he glances toward the clock radio. It reads 3:35 PM. “You get off early too?”

“Yeah.” Otabek responds. No one wants their car cleaned when it’s raining like this.”

“I don’t know how we’re gonna make up the money.” Otabek has lab fees coming up for his honors chem class. Yuri saw the water bill for this month. It’s orange, and that means the next one is a big angry red disconnect notice.

“Not much that can be done about it today.” Otabek supplies. Otabek rises, disappears into the kitchen, and returns with a giant plate of pizza for them to share. Tucked in the corner of his arm is a liter of orange soda. They drink it straight from the bottle.

Yuri stares indignantly at the static on the television for a little while, then he decides to put on another movie. He doesn’t get up. Too lazy. Instead he crawls on all fours across the wobbly mattress, pops in his favorite tape, _Bloodsport_ , and then stops to pick a wedgie with his hands braced up against the TV stand. He’s wearing these stretchy teal leggings that are so fucking comfy, but they make his underwear ride high up his ass.

He retreats back to the headboard. Otabek takes a long pull from the bottle. He hands it to Yuri. Yuri stares at the plastic and tries not to think about how it's just been in Otabek’s mouth. They share drinks all the time. “I'm not thirsty, he says as he tries to focus on the opening montage of the fighters training.

They eat in silence, and then when the food is gone, Otabek stows the plate on the nightstand. Yuri hates the romance parts even though it’s his favorite movie. It feels so forced. Yuri doesn’t steal furtive glances at Otabek’s lips while he waits for the fight scenes to pick back up. He doesn’t look at Otabek’s body through his pajamas: sweats and a tank that he’ll eventually ditch when they do go to bed. He definitely doesn’t think about the way the bed rolls and crashes like ocean tides when he and Otabek jerk off inches away from one another.

Eventually the action picks back up. Yuri lays down, because even though he’d had a nap, he wasn’t exactly awake. Otabek mirrors Yuri’s position, sprawled out on his back and propped up on pillows and his elbows.

Ashamedly, Yuri puts on action flicks to jerk off. He can’t help it. It’s the most readily available source of shirtless, and decent looking men, especially in winter when Otabek doesn’t strip off his shirt to cut the grass. He has an almost Pavlovian response to the film. He’s half hard by the time Van Damme is in Hong Kong.

Yuri’s eyes wander. There’s laundry still in the basket that needed to be folded. There’s those god awful amber colored glass decanters which rested on top of the black and gold dresser. Yuri’s got most of his clothes in there by now. The only thing left of mama’s are the things he thinks he will wear. He looks at the framed portrait of him, mom, grandma, and grandpa all together on the far wall. It’s the one where he’s really young, and mom has got him in that god awful sailor suit. Even all of that isn’t enough to kill his goddamn boner. Then, there’s nothing left to look at other than the TV and Otabek. 

So of course his eyes drift lower. Otabek doesn’t have the blanket pulled over his lap like he does. Yuri can see very plainly, the unmistakable bulge in Otabek’s pants.

Somehow that’s worse than just jerking off and pretending its hormones. Extending whatever this was beyond their strange half asleep half-awake times before bed and after they wake up is dangerous. Yuri really doesn’t want to lose his best friend.

At the same time seeing it makes his heart race, and his mouth water, and his dick fucking twitch in his leggings.

Before Yuri can really think about the implications of what it is that he’s doing, he’s swallowing a giant knot in his throat. It’s one that has been building for years. Yuri’s hand hovers over the drawstring on Otabek’s sweatpants. There has to be something fucking there if they’ve been jerking off next to each other like this for weeks. There fucking has to be. Even if Otabek isn’t gay, there’s something there.

Otabek doesn’t push his hand away or turn. So Yuri’s hand acts again, seemingly of its own free will. Yuri grinds his palm down on Otabek until he was aching hard and straining.

Yuri feels his cock twitch against his palm. He hears Otabek’s breath stutter, alongside a soft series of gasps that somehow manage to grab Yuri by the base of the cock and pull him forward. Make him act more.

“Otabek can I?” Was the only thing Yuri asked. He wonders if asking will pull Otabek back to reality. Make him remember that Yuri is his friend, not his girlfriend.

Otabek’s voice cracks with each pained syllable, “I want to do it to you too.”

And the response almost makes Yuri’s heart stop. He assumed that Otabek would probably let him jerk him off. It’s just jerking off, plus Otabek’s already straining against his palm. He never anticipated that Otabek would want to reciprocate.

He must feel compelled to do so. Yuri peels the leggings off, which cling to him like a second skin.

Otaek’s hand around him is loose, and barely there. At first, Otabek’s touch is intoxicating, and Yuri ruts up into them immediately. Then, when the adrenaline tapers off, he wonders if it’s going to be enough. Yuri’s usually pretty rough with himself. He does exactly what it is that he needs to do to come as quickly and as quietly as possible.

Immediately he interprets Otabek’s loose grip as a lack of enthusiasm.

Despite this, Yuri is determined to do his best. It might not mean a thing to Otabek, but it means everything to him. Otabek is the first person he sees when he wakes up on the other side of the waterbed. He’s the last thing he sees when he goes to bed, and it’s a goddamn shame that he’s so fucking worked up over a fucking hand job.

Otabek is bigger than he is. Thicker too. There are veins that throb where Yuri has none. Otabek is so very wet, like he can’t stop leaking precome. As much as he’d like to, Yuri dare not sneak a glance. Instead, he bites his lip so hard, that his lips bruise. He clamps his eyes shut, and focuses on the low shallow sound of Otabek’s breathing.

For Otabek, it was over in minutes. He came into Yuri’s hand quickly, which was strange because Otabek is always the last to come. Otabek’s feather light touches eventually smolder and restore the fire within until he feels nothing but warmth from his stomach to his toes. Only after every inch of his body is consumed by strange ember like heat does he spill into Otabek’s hand.

Otabek pulls his pants back up. Yuri finds his leggings underneath the covers and pulls them back on.

_So why can’t I touch it?_

Afterwards, Otabek shifts his body so that he’s lying uncomfortably close to Yuri. They’re both pulled underneath the pink afghan, and everything feels hot and sticky. Otabek spoons him from behind, and has his free arm draped across Yuri’s chest. Yuri can feel the constant and steady damp hot puff of Otabek’s breath against his neck and that alone threatens to make him hard again.

Yuri wants to say something. Yuri wants to ask Otabek anything. Everything feels like it’s changed, but Yuri has no idea what to say. He’s so fucking greedy, and doesn’t want any of this to end. Ever. Helplessly, his eyes stay glued to the screen until the end credits roll.

Only after the screen has gone fuzzy with static does Yuri turn to Otabek again. It’s difficult for Yuri to recall who closed the distance between them. All that he knows is that first it was an open mouthed peck, and then it was an unstoppable and bruising mess between them. Yuri knew that Otabek’s hands were firm in the best kind of way. He knows this when Otabek pulls him off someone in a fist fight. He didn’t know that Otabek’s mouth was impossibly hot.

He knows for sure that he wants more of this. More tongue, more teeth, more Otabek. More of Otabek’s length pressed against his thigh. More sticky skin hidden beneath blankets. More everything.

“Can you be my boyfriend?” Otabek asks in between sloppy open mouthed kisses. He’s got his hand down Yuri’s tights again, and is playing with his cock.

Yuri laughs. It’s acidic and sharp. “Whatever the fuck you want Altin.” Yuri tries to play it cool. He’s still afraid that this is all a dream. It doesn’t work though. His mouth curls into a smile, and then he’s babbling, “I like, love you. Or whatever.” It’s hard to choke out the statement when he’s trying to choke back a sob.

“Yuri,” and Yuri hears a sound he’s never heard before. Otabek’s voice cracking. Otabek pulls his hand from underneath Yuri’s tights, and Yuri groans in frustration. He’s fucking ruined it. Otabek pulls Yuri close close even though the temperature under the pink yarn afghan is stifling. “Yuri? Are you crying?”

“No.” Yuri insists, and his voice cracks again in a way that lets Otabek know that Yuri is definitely crying.

“Yuri, it’s okay.” Otabek rubs up and down Yuri’s spine. He makes little soothing circles with his fingers against Yuri’s shoulder in a vain attempt to get him to relax. “I love you. So much.”

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [[podfic] Why Can't I Touch It?](https://archiveofourown.org/works/12084123) by [AshiiPods (ashiiblack)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/ashiiblack/pseuds/AshiiPods)




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